Dev Interview - Launch Day Login Experience, New Classic Realms

[chaud]

Developer Interview - Launch Day Login Experience
Forbes has an interview with Ion Hazzikostas about layering and launch day.

• Layering is the lesser of several evils when it comes to handling launch week populations.
• Many people have been waiting for this launch for years and are committed to the long haul, but there will also be tons of tourists checking it out at launch.
• The team is predicting a fairly steep drop off compared to the interest players are showing on launch day.
• Community is very important in Classic, so keeping the number of realms reasonable to ensure a healthy population is important.
• The team really really wants to avoid having to offer transfers or merging Classic realms later.
• Raising player caps on realms could be done but causes contention for finite spawn points and leads to bottlenecks.
• When you log in, you'll be assigned to a layer and will stay there for that gameplay session.
• The only way to change layers will be accepting a group invite from a player in another layer. Once you move to that new layer, that'll be your new layer for the gameplay session.
• The team expects to aggressively reduce the number of layers after the first few days.
• As the team goes into Phase 2, the goal is to have just one layer per realm.
• Layers will be removed with realm restarts or during maintenance.

US and Oceanic - New WoW Classic Realms are Now Open

Due to very high demand, we’ve opened two new WoW Classic realms in this region:

Ashkandi - Normal - Eastern
Kirtonos - PvP - Eastern
Rattlegore - PvP - Pacific
Kurinnaxx – PvP - Pacific
Kromcrush – PvP – Eastern
Yojamba - PvP - AEST

We suggest that players choosing a realm consider one of these, as other realms currently marked as “Full” population will experience extended queues.

Thank you!

EU - New WoW Classic Realms Enabled

Due to extremely high demand, we’ve established the following new WoW Classic realms in this region:

Stonespine – PvP - EN-EU
Noggenfogger – PvP – EN-EU

We suggest that players choosing a realm consider one of these, as the other realms currently marked as “Full” population will experience queues.

Thank you!

[greenn]

i never sat in a 4.5 hour queue in classic

[Queen of Hamsters]

"Community is very important in Classic, so keeping the number of realms reasonable to ensure a healthy population is important."

Aka, the issues players are currently having should simply be viewed as a necessary evil for a healthy future.
Yet the outcry is severe.

[Segus1992]

Why does EU only get one more server when we've got bigger queues than the US despite US peak hour?

[dkderek]

"Community is very important in Classic, so keeping the number of realms reasonable to ensure a healthy population is important."

Aka, the issues players are currently having should simply be viewed as a necessary evil for a healthy future.
Yet the outcry is severe.

Except they are adding new servers anyways.


I don't understand the logic.

[alturic]

Except they are adding new servers anyways.


I don't understand the logic.

Based on the quote, it means “we don’t want to release a bunch of servers for only a handful to be needed a week later”.

[dkderek]

Based on the quote, it means “we don’t want to release a bunch of servers for only a handful to be needed a week later”.

Except they are constantly adding new servers, to meet the demands of people on launch day.

[SoulSoBreezy]

i never sat in a 4.5 hour queue in classic

We also didn't have an unlimited supply of accounts available at day 1. I very clearly recall WoW being sold out in a lot of areas in the first few weeks, mostly because Blizzard didn't expect such a high demand.

[Fred Skinner]

i never sat in a 4.5 hour queue in classic

You do not play WoW for a long time already, dont you?

There is no single launch blizzard did not wreck.

[korijenkins]

Played since launch, got booted 8 minutes ago and now I'm told to wait in a queue.

Fuck this. Pathetic fail Blizzard.

[barbalion]

"Extended Queue Times" does not equal 5+ hour queues, there is absolutely no reason for queues to be that long.

[BigToast]

You do not play WoW for a long time already, dont you?

There is no single launch blizzard did not wreck.

Except of course the fairly smooth launches of the past few expansions.

[Mozu]

"Extended Queue Times" does not equal 5+ hour queues, there is absolutely no reason for queues to be that long.

Of course there is. 95% of people are going to be gone within a week.

[oldgeezer]

No queues on Hydraxian Waterlords (EU/RP) earlier this evening. Logged in, got bored killing kobolds, logged off.

[munkeyinorbit]

You do not play WoW for a long time already, dont you?

There is no single launch blizzard did not wreck.

Except the last two launches. Facts straight before posting please.

[JacobusRex]

Logged in, got bored killing kobolds, logged off.

Classic summed up in one sentence everyone!

[Psygon]

Lots of QQ comments... how about gtfo?

[munkeyinorbit]

"Extended Queue Times" does not equal 5+ hour queues, there is absolutely no reason for queues to be that long.

You replied to a thread that is literally about the reasons. It's like you randomly found this thread and just posted. Why would you do that?

[Clozer]

Why does EU only get one more server when we've got bigger queues than the US despite US peak hour?

There are 4 pvp/pve servers marked as "low", you wont have any queue if you roll on one of those. Just be smart, not stupid.

[Shadowstrike]

You guys behave as if this is Black Friday. You kept waiting till the gates opened and you "tried" to rush inside whining and complaining blizz.
Unlike you, i feel happy that I won the bet that the launch will be like a battlefield.